Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1887-02-11
NOVELIST HOWELLS.
HARD WORK THE EARLIEST REcREA-
TON OF THIS STORY WRITER.

Course-Iow William Deans Early Eff
fusions Were Received by Rural Critics.
Especial Correspondence
CLEVELAND, Feb. 8.-YVork, hard work,
was the earliest recreation of Howells, the
novelist, He was neither rocked in a satin
lined cradle nor hushed to sleep in the lap of
luxury. His father and his fathers father
had been toilers before him, and even as a
child this son of genius earned his bread by
tho sweat of his brow. 1t was seventy-nine
years ago that a weaver went forth from the
little Welsh village of Hay and sailed over
the sea to America. The emigrant was
Joseph Howells, and with him came his Eng
lish wife and infant son. The baby was
named William Cooper Howells and he in
turn became the sire of a baby of his own.
The second y%oungster. William Dean Howells,
isthe leaven of this rapid sketch.
The English mother of William Cooper
Howells was a woman of superior education
and refined qualities. She was, moreover, an
ambitious woman, for she taught her son to
read before he was years old. Tho bent of
her mind was toward poetry and general lit
e~rature, and she left her impress upon her
son, who became an editor, and upon her
grandson, who is now one of our foremost
men in letters. Reared a Quaker, she was
repudiated by the Friends when Cupid gave
her heart and hand to the sturdy young
Welshman. However, she never deserted her
early faith, and the garb of the society was
too dear a badge for her ever to surrender.
Joseph was u rover, moving hither and
thither, VI the Hudson from Manhattan Isl
and, over into Virginia, then into southern
Ohio, and finally across the river to the
tiourishing settlement of Wheeling. The
baby from athwart the main became a youth
and then a printer, and at "a he married
Mary Dean, an Ohio girl, who was bred and.
born in the old fashioned town of New Lisbon.
The printer turned editor, and coming back
into this state, he drifted here and there,
while an evil star logged his heels. His mis-
sion in those days was to preach the doctrines
of anti-slavery and to herald abroad the
tenets of the Wing faith.
In the meantime his family multiplied. The
firsv born was j.. a Howells, and after him
came the novelist. The two boys were taught
to set type before they had entered their
teens, and the younger stood on a chair be-
cause he was too short to reachup tohis case.
The father eventually brought up at Dayton,
where he exchanged all the money he pos
sessed for The Transcript newspaper. w. d.
Howells was then IL years old, but he was a
sklhIui printer and he could set type as fast
as a man. While other lads of his age were
at school he was a bread winner in his fathers
Office. The Transcript, however. was a fail
ure financially, at least, and the family re-
slmed their wanderings. This time Column
bus, the state capital, was their destination.
There the father reported the proceedings of
the general assembly for The Journal. while
the boys found employment as printers with
the same paper at the princely pay of S4 q
week. In 1852 editor Howells bought an in
terest in b Ashtabula Sentinel, and a few
months later he removed it to Jefferson. the
county seat, where it has ever since remained.
jefferson Is fifty miles north and east of
Cleveland, as the crow flies, and William
Dean, the flower of the, tribe OF, Howells, was
Is When he went there. to live. His education
indeed was a practical one. The whir of
the hand press and the click of the types had
been his teacher and his playmate. His com
panions were men who visited his fathers
sanetum to renew their subscriptions or to
discuss the vary latest political complication
Those great an~tirslavery leaders, Senator Ben.
jamin il. Wade and Congressman Joshua r.
GiddIngs, were citizens of the town, and con-
tributions from their blunt pens oftentimes
found their way into the columns of The SEN
tlnei. The Sentinel was ably conducted and
it was filled each week with choice poems bv
Whittier, 14ongfellow and Buchanan Reed.
W. towels, the moving spirit i'll the en-
terprise went to school but six months all
told, but by application he was able to teach
his sons Latin and French and to direct their
tastes in the best literary channels. His Ii
brary was quite complete, and in it Young
Howells spent many a satisfying hour. He
took up the study of Spanish, and before
long he translated a story from that language
at his printers case, setting the types as he
went along, "Will Nareyn was his maiden
nom de plume, and over that signature he
wrote sly verses and short sketches for The
Jefferson Weekly.
Or course the wise heads of the village dis
cussed the merits of these productions while
toastlng their shins before the glowing stoves
OF grocery store and postoffice. And alasl
the CRITICISMS were not always delivered in
the spirit of charity or encouragement. So
fierce were the assaults at times that the
young writer was almost inclined to abandon
his pen and stick to his types. A little story
called "The "reminiscences of a Candidate i
called out a terrible TRADE from these self
appointed ~censors, who, firing of talking
crops, turned their verbal batteries toward a
slip of a boy whose only fault was a determi-
nation to get IN in the world.
AT 20 Howells went to Columbus with his
father. who had been appointed clerk in the
state senate. For a time he was legislative
correspondent for a Cincinnati newspaper
and then he became the news and literary
editor OF The Columbus Journal at a salary
of Sl2 a week. Whitelaw Reid was then
sending dispatches to the old Cincinnati Ga
zette for $40 a week. John j. Piatt, q
writer of some consequence in the west, was
also q citizen of the capital, and he and
Howells pooled their poetical fancies and
jointly issued "a little book OF poems. 1t was
while in Columbus that Howells sent his first
verses to The Atlantic. They were accented.
and a check for S25 was sent him. Three
years later Lincoln was nominated for the
presidency, and Howells wrote a sketch of
his life and had it published in book form. Il
paid the author $500 in hard cash and gave
him the consulship at Venice. Thus ended
Howells' career i'll Ohio. He went to Italy.
and before he was 2S "Venetian LIFE had
been published in New York and London.
Howells' genius came to him, perhaps, from
his Quaker grandmother. His mother, Mary
Dean, was a woman of many virtues, but it
cannot be said that her inclination was very
marked in the direction of letters. The father.
now 80 years old, was, until quite recently,
United States consul at Quebec. He lives in
jefferson, where his son, j.. A. Howells. still
owns and edits The Sentinel. Anne towels.
the younger daughter, married Frechette,
the Canadian poet. She, too, is a writer of
verses and descriptive articles, but her talent
1 - ,,nt ~ ne hfr,I, 80,